In Defense of Poor Barry

By
the time you read this, Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants will
have made baseball history by breaking Hank Aarons career homerun
record.

And you will have
heard many pundits deploring Bondss obvious use of head-swelling
steroids.

Okay. We all admire,
say, the honest, lovable Cal Ripken more than this dubious and surly
superstar. But how about a little sense of proportion? In essence, Bonds
corked his bat; hes Sammy Sosa writ large. He cheated for glory; but
he didnt try to hurt anyone.

Im from
Detroit, where the truly detestable Ty Cobb became a baseball immortal
(.367 lifetime batting average, 12 batting crowns, 4,191 hits, 978 stolen
bases) while actually trying to injure his opponents, many of whom hated him
the rest of their lives.

Has Bonds ever done
that?

Or think of the many
mound heroes  some of them Hall-of-Famers 
who threw fastballs at batters heads. Has Bonds done anything
remotely comparable? (If you want a real baseball hero, read Jane
Leaveys wonderful biography of Sandy Koufax. Granted, she lays it on
a mite thick: The book might have been titled O Come, Let Us Adore
Him. But you cant blame Sandy for that.)

And think of sports
whose very purpose is to do bodily harm to opponents, with spectators
reveling in the mayhem.

If it werent
for the vanity of statistics, Bonds would be remembered simply as one of
the most thrilling baseball players of all time.

I repeat, we need
some sense of proportion about this. As I joked to my best pal,
Im going to write Bonds a letter. And its going to be
even nastier than the one I wrote to Aaron when he broke Babe Ruths
record!
Pardon My Popery

A sweet Bible
Christian of my acquaintance  that is, one who thinks the Holy Spirit
let the Church use the wrong Bible until 1517 or so  got furious with
me last year for sending her husband, one of my oldest friends, a prayer to
St. Thérèse. How terribly Popish of me!

More recently, she
has taunted me for having illegitimate grandchildren. After checking chapter
19 of St. Matthews Gospel, I find that Jesus, just as I recalled,
welcomes the wee ones, without qualification.

Ive already
written enough about Christopher Hitchenss truly obtuse atheist
tract god Is Not Great, but I cant drop the subject
without mentioning Tom Piataks amazing review on Takis Top
Drawer. Id rather be mauled by a lion than deserve such a notice.

Incidentally, one of
the evils Hitchens blames on religion, especially Christianity, is
sexism.

This is a real howl.
Does anyone think pagan savages practiced sexual equality back in the State
of Nature?

It was the Church, in
fact, that first exalted woman to a degree never before imagined, simply by
recognizing her spiritual dignity.
A Deed without a Name

For years I have tried
to think of a name both accurate and fair for one of the great evils of the
modern world, something sensitive people are well aware of but hardly dare
discuss publicly. It has been the ruin of many; it has bred war and
persecution.

I propose to call it
secular Semitism. It is neither Judaism nor Jews as a race;
many of its most thoughtful critics and determined enemies, in fact, are
religious and ethnic Jews.

But to criticize it is
to court charges of being either an anti-Semite or a
self-hating Jew. The dread of being slandered with false
charges of anti-Semitism has warped American journalism and politics for a
long time now; an astute foreign observer has noted that public discussion of
Jewish matters in this country is extraordinarily guarded.
(Yes, that was our friend Mr. Hitchens, many years ago!)

The New Testament
recounts that the early Christians had to take evasive action, again and
again, for fear of the Jews.

Of course the
Jews is only an approximation, the first disciples themselves being
strictly religious and genuinely ethnic Jews.

Secular Semitism has
expressed itself in Zionism, liberalism, hatred of Christianity, and blaming the
Church for anti-Semitism, the Holocaust, and every other evil, real and
imaginary.

Without a Christian
morality of natural law, why on earth would anyone but Jews think
anti-Semitism was a moral evil? Most men assume we should hate our enemies.

Put it this way: Does
President Bush, a nominal Christian, pray fervently for the Iranians?
Riddle

What does Abe
Foxman, head of the Anti-Defamation League, have in common with his bête
noire, Mel Gibson?

Give up? Hes
a baptized Catholic! As a small child in Europe during the Hitler era, Abe was
taken in at great risk by a Catholic family, who had him baptized.

Not that he seems
very grateful. And I must confess I have to keep reminding myself that Abe
is still technically a member of the Mystical Body of Christ. You could easily
get the wrong impression, eh, Mel?
Imus

Does anyone still
remember the enormous media to-do about Don Imus only last April? He was
on the cover of Time for blurting three words!

Amazing how fast
these moralistic seizures blow over. Can a Hitler pass into oblivion in the
space of less than four months?

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